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74 CENTRAL AMERICA.
portions of the shores, the exclusive possession of which is
secured to them by immemorial custom. The ﬁsh is of"
indifferent quality, yet much esteemed and praised by the inhabitants of San Salvador, because it is almost the only aliment of the kind they are acquainted with ; for although the city is no more than seven leagues from the ocean, sea ﬁsh is very rarely brought to it. A great variety of mineral waters is found in different parts of the State; there are also numerous thermal waters, many of very high temperatures, said to have peculiar and medicinal properties; but as the waters have seldom, if ever, been analyzed, their salutary effects are more frequently imaginary than well ascertained: no doubt some of them, if carefully examined, might be found beneﬁcial in many complaints. In the immediate vicinity of the city there are springs much used as baths; some of an agreeable temperature, others too hot to be endured by the human body until the water has passed some hundred yards from the source, and become mingled with that of cold springs rising from nearly the same spot as the hot ones. About three leagues south-east of the town of Ahuachapam, there are some remarkable hot springs, called the Ausoles, (or CEsoles,) emitting a dense white steam from a semi—ﬂuid mass of mud and water in a state of ebullition, continually throwing large heavy bubbles to the surface ; this heated mass is in some black, in others red, or of an ochry colour. On the road from San Salvador to San Miguel, other ausoles are visible in different places on the sides of the mountains, always indicated by towering colums of white vapour, ‘which they throw up to a considerable height; in this part the people of the country give them the name of Infernillos.